Let’s Print a Smart Temperature Tower
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 มิ.ย. 2024
- Today I make a temp tower in Ultimaker Cura and teach you how to make your own. In the video, I’m using Cura 4.8.0 for my Ender 3 V2. If you are also using Cura as your slicer it should be easy to follow along. If you aren’t, your slicer should have a similar function.
Update 4/2/23 - there is now a plug-in that generates temp towers, among others, for Cura. It works well: marketplace.ultimaker.com/app...
It came out after I made this video. But I’m glad so many people have found it helpful!
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and STL download
01:24 Load STL file into Cura and set initial settings
03:40 Finding the 9 layers where the temp should change
07:06 Setting the temp changes in Cura using Change At Z Height
12:35 Inspecting the tower after printing
14:29 Conclusion
The Smart Compact Temperature Calibration tower can be downloaded from: www.thingiverse.com/thing:272...
In this video I use the first downloadable file for PLA 180-225
Temperature changes on the tower are achieved by modifying the G Code. Go to Cura's top bar menu, select extentions - post processing - modify g code. Then we are using the Change at Z command in this video.
After you save the file, remember to delete the extra G code commands! You don't want them accidentally inserted into your next print and ruining it.
Music credit: "Pop Topper" by Spanish Anchors via Apple iMovie license - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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10/10 tutorial, helped me greatly
Awesome! I’m so glad it helped.
Just a warning for everyone - the custom Z temperature stays there even after you close Cura and open another file. Don’t forget to remove them after. Advice from a dude who spent a day wondering why a print won’t work.
TIP: You can use the keyboard up/down arrow keys to move through the model, one layer at a time. Simply click the circle on the layer scroll device located to the right of the screen and then use the arrow keys.
I personally use this trick all the time for inspecting the generated slice layer by layer, and it would also help with this temperature tower.
2 years later and your video helped me learn something new, great video, straightforward and practical. Thanks!
This was great simple, straight to the point tutorial! thank you!
Clear, concise, and easy to follow. Thank you for this
Thank you so much Brian, excellent tutorial
Thanks for an easy to follow tutorial!
This was very helpful how to. Thank you for the video!
Thank you Brian. That was very helpful.
Very nice tutorial. One minor thing though: You are off by one layer.
While the layer number in the Preview is one-based, it is zero-based in the resulting gcode. If you open the gcode with a text editor, you should see comments before each layer. The first layer is commented as ";LAYER:0", the first layer with a temperature change as ";LAYER:58". So it actually changes before the 59th layer and the scripts should instead be assigned to layers 57, 107 and so on.
Interesting. Today I learned something new. Thanks!
The scripts use a 'trigger' layer which means it would change on the following layer you program. So he is actually off by 2 layers. :) To start with a new temperature on LAYER:57 you set the trigger layer to be LAYER:56 so when LAYER:57 starts, it starts at the new temperature.
Best description for temp tower instruction I've seen yet. Thank you, subscribed!
Great tutorial! It was clear and easy to follow. Thank you so much for this! I just finished modifying my own temp tower for my new PLA+ filament. Going to start my print, but wanted to thank you for the work you put into this! You have a new sub.
Really helpful! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Brian, I learnt a lot from this video. Never looked at the post processing scripts before, so this was a good introduction.
Good stuff. Finally clear instructions on how to print a temp tower in Cura. Now I can finally dial in some of the cheap filament that I gave up on. Great content, thanks!
Great Video Brian!!!! Really appreciate it bud!
Awesome! New 3D printer user here and this was extremely helpful! You have gained a follower!
Really professional, perfect.
Brian. thank you very much!! great Job!!
Brian, helpful, is an understatement, I wish all info-videos were as clear and easy to understand as yours.
Super helpful, Thank You!!!
Thank you very much for this!
Great video! Thank you
Btw, your printer setting seem bang on!
Cura has made things so much easier now, there are scripts for temp towers, all you do, is subtract the amount of layers of the base, ( usually 5-8 layers) from the total amount of layers, then divide that number by the amount of temp steps there are, to get the layer count for each of the temperature steps.
in the script you put in your initial temp, and whether its -5 or 5 for each temp change. there is also a place to enter your base layer count. before saving the slice, enter the starting temperature in the cura settings, so if your tower starts at 220C at the bottom, you want to have cura start at that, and the script will add or subtract whatever amount you have set ( usually 5c).
what do you do when the tempersture change isnt going through onto your printer?
super helpful, thank you!
Thank you very much. Helped me a lot.
Great tutorial!
Thank you
Great tutorial! Got my subscription!
Excellent video for a beginner like myself!
This was very helpful, thanks!
thank you, now i been knows more about 3d printing!
Great explanation ,Thanks.
Great video... watched a few that missed steps or used a different method that didn't work as well. This explained it quite well and at a good pace.
dude A+ tutorial, keep up the good work. I do recommend though cutting out all that time that has nothing going on.
Awesome! Thx for share
Really helped me out as I was having a ton of issues with a new filament. Can you do a video on stringing? I've tried everything I've read online and just still can not figure it out.
Awesome video, thanks mate!
Glad it helped! Thanks for watching it.
This was a fantastic tutorial, very to the point!
Thanks! I enjoyed making it and am glad so many people found it helpful
Amazing video helped me a lot. Did you also have a good advice for retraction to find out the optimal retraction spped and length ? Would be nice if you could do a video about that too
Thank you for a wonderful , well explained video. Not a lot of extra verbiage and the simple, basic explanation that I am having so hard to find as a brand new 3D printer person.
Thanks for the tutorial! Everything worked great and I learned new things about the filament that I had. Question, what filament did you print it with? The color change was beautiful.
Thank you 😀 your video also taught me that you can link Cura to OctoPrint - no more save, upload, print for me 🥳
great video thanks a lot, helped me
Almost 12000 views and only 277 likes. Come on people, give the man a thumbs-up. This was a very good step by step instructional video, that i am sure took him a good amount of time to make.
I absolutely second (and third) that statement. This video answered a LOT of questions I have as a real noob to 3d printing. Thank you, Brian!
Excellent video. Only nit to pick is I would have liked to know the brand of Silk PLA you were using.
Thank you so much!
thanks for the guide
Happy to help, thanks for commenting
Very nice. I just my printer can handle overhangs as well as yours does. I always seem to get overhang curling.
Thank you. This helped =)
Thank you Brian. As it happened I'm also on Cura 4.8.
I tried the script as suggested by the creator of the tower to no avail. Your video came to rescue.
Thank you.
I’m so glad it helped!
Thank you so much.
Thank you kind sir
Thanks!
Great tutorial thanks!
Glad it helped. Thanks so much for watching it.
@@brianhart1771 Im printing rn, it really helped keep the tutorials coming cuz they're awesome ❤️
@@aruiroth0 Will do!
4 hours?!? bloody hell...snail pace
Thanks for the video. Had some problem filament that just refused to cooperate and this helped in a big way. A question though - I note that we start at the highest temperature, then decrease as the tower rises. I've seen towers that go the other way, starting at a low temp then increasing. Any real advantage from one to the other?
THANK YOUUUU
He's got that whole Bob Ross voice going on. Very soothing. :D
Perfect for a noob like me thanks!
Super helpful video! What did you end up changing in your settings for the stringing issue??
Higher temp plus playing with the retraction. I’ve since used up all that spool and honestly don’t recall the retraction settings we used but I know we used higher values. Just don’t recall what.
Hi Brian, I'm newbie. Do I have to make the settings for the first temperature level or I have just to insert the SD card in the printer and select the file? I think that we should find a midterm between temperature, speed and flow, should we? Thanks
Hello Brian, thanks for this very helpful tutorial! I have a question though, why your model doesn't need any support (especially above the printed numbers)? From my side, it collapsed when I printed! Thanks :)
Thanks
Thanks for this tutorial! Is there a way to save the set of scripts in order to load them quickly whenever you want to print a temp tower? Or is the only way to manually enter them each time?
This is a great question, thanks.
Thank you. Its not hard, but you need to see the process. The Thingiverse is confusing if you haven't messed with gcode scripts.
To be clear: No (stl) models have any type of code regarding temperature, layer height...? All that has to be done post creation in the slicer?
Retried this method, nothing gets into the gcode when sliced .😮 how do you push the layer temp settings to the slicer?
Hi Brian
for CURA 5, layers are given in mm. I did your process and look carrefully my printer working. I am surprised to see that my firts step temp extruder ( on my SW X2 screen) is 205°C in place of the 225 set in the Gcode...? strange
Are you supposed to have "Enable Bridge Settings" checked in Cura when you run a temp tower like this?
Your tower printed awesome but mine was crappy, i will try drying the filament first and printing the tower then
Yeah. It happens. I ran one the other day that strung on every temp.
Are you using Cura? There is a plug-in on marketplace that makes temp towers now so you don’t have to mess with it unless you want that level of control.
marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/plugins/Kartchnb/AutoTowersGenerator
@@brianhart1771 thanks brian
what brand filament are you using?
Hi I need to ask a question about extruder heat. I have Two Trees Bluer. I did the same settings but when i look the screen of my printer extruder heat stay at 225 on every layers. Is it normal or is it need to be change?
My post-processing script isn't getting written to the gcode script. I've got an Ender-3 s1 pro and I've tried it with the Creality Slicer as well. I've tried several things but nothing seems to work. Any ideas? I know how to code, so I'm familiar with all of this.
I've always made my own temp towers so far been able to bridge a 5in gap with little to no sag I am curious tho on this tower just I don't understand why the bridging is so thick and the scope side of it I would guess for stringing so it's like a 2 in one but seems kinda wasteful for the size also for all the ppl having cura issues there is add ons that do the work for Ya you just tell it the layer (haven't used cura in a while I moved to simplify 3d cause all the derps I've had on cura and s3d makes life so much easier
I lke the fiament, how d you add the text for the numbers.
now i kind of know ho to use the G Code.
one more thing, if my bed has temp? to which temp should i set it.
in case you ask, material = PLA+
thank you very much.
I am a relative novice, however basic rule of thumb, use what is recommended by the manufacturer of the filament then tweek it up or down from there. Generally somewhere in the 60 degree plus region for PLA
My g-code didn't update with the new heat settings. What gives? Other people had this problem too.
what do you do when the tempersture change isnt going through onto your printer?
Instead of deleting the G-code: I'd recommend saving it so that "Every time that you get new filament: [You can] Run one of these and see how it comes out"! (i.e., ,Save project)
Why would you change the temperature at the top layer? There are no more layers to print.
Let me preface this by saying, I am brand new to the world of 3D printing (literally like 5 days into having a printer but long time machinist, welder, and general fabricator though with some ME background).
This might be a rather dumb question, but any particular reason for starting hot and then progressing cooler as you move up?
Granted, natural part cooling probably negates any effect but at face value, it seems to me that you would want to start with the coolest and work your way up in temp along with elevation rather than temp down as elevation increases because if hotter on lower level, heat propagation from hotter lower levels could in theory effect the next upper level.
Again, natural part cooling and the fact that its only 5°c increments probably negates any possible temperature propagation effects but it was something that caught my attention because of the welder in me and having situations over the years where welding sequence of assemblies was critical because of heat propagation (particularly in reference to time per assembly with heat sensitive materials)
Man, I have no idea! I didn’t design the temp tower, I just made a video about it.
But what you’ve said makes logical sense to me. Maybe so one more knowledgeable will chime in. I’d love an answer too.
You start hot and go cool because it is possible that at the lower temperatures your print fails due to the filament not melting & flowing fast enough. Most PLA will still function at 180, though certain finishes (Hatchbox Matte finish PLA likes ~15C higher than glossy) may stop flowing around 190, meaning around 185 your tower starts having major gaps and at 180 it might not print at all.
@@Trgkai Thanks for the reply.
That makes a lot of sense and on top of that, I decided to do a little test just to see how much potential there is to actually be a heat propagation. Turns out, natural cooling like I kind of thought might be is cooling the part so fast that its really not a concern.
Basically what I did was printed a 20mm cube (purposely did it as a solid so it had the most mass thus retaining the most possible heat) and mid way up, I had a partial hole feature coming in from the back side and once the at a layer that had the hole about 75% complete, I stuck a thermocouple in it to monitor the temp. despite printing at 215c with a bed temp of 65c, I never say higher than 197c on the meter and that was only short spikes as the nozzle passed over the tip of the thermocouple printing the last couple 2 layers closing the hole off on the top side.
By time it was a two 2 or 3 layers beyond that, the temp was already down to about 100c and within a couple more, it was down to about 80 where it slowed down in its rate of cooling.
Seeing that, it clear that natural cooling (well with cooling fan on between 95 and 100%) definitely indicates that heat propagation is definitely not a possibility like I first thought could be possible.
Maybe it's been said, but why are you using the slider or the mouse to fine-tune the view of the layers in Preview? Use the up/down arrow on your keyboard and you can do one layer at a time. Simple.
I don’t know. It was two years ago. That seems easier.
I was wondering if you actually watched that the temp changed on octoprint or on the printer panel? Did it really change temps? Because I'm thinking about doing a temp tower, the one you just did, and they usually have some variation in them, drastic variation, or why bother?
I give you props for a great video but I was a little surprised at the end and it didn't seem to bother you that the print was so consistent. If you say you saw the temperature change and not just trusting the code I believe you. totally! But this is a very surprising result to me even though I have never printed one in my life. Pictures online don't look like that. Some bridges just collapse, others are perfect normally, I've seen consistently online. What are your thoughts? Maybe your printer is just so dialed in or the filament is off-the-hook... I don't know, but if so, I want to get mine to that level for sure!
Edited to add: The more I think about it, the more I realize what a great question this is. I’m so glad you asked it.
I actually watched it change. And then ran it on a second printer to be sure it worked before I released the tutorial. The towers on the 2nd printer showed a large difference in results with standard PLA from a different manufacturer.
I think, and I’m not positive until I test, that the silk PLA I used in the video would show much different results if I used a tower that went to a hotter temperature. The manufacturer recommends printing it as high as 230 iirc. So I think if we ran it above that we’d see some different results. I might try it.
When we ran the tower on my son’s printer we saw noticeable differences between temps. But even more interesting to me, he ran it on two colors from the same brand. And the results showed that the white and the black from that brand would be best if printed at different temps.
Thanks for watching the video and for your thoughts.
Hey. Me again. We ran that tower again tonight except we upped it to 240 on the high end. And yeah, it shows some real ugliness in the 240 and 235 section. Jess followed my tutorial and made her own tower. I’m so proud. 🥰
@@brianhart1771 Awesome! I'm going to try a temp tower today. Now I have some realistic expectations of how it would work out! Thanks for putting in the extra effort. :)
Achh I thought printing the tower auto changed the temp :D
I did exactly the steps in this video., and my print is still not changing temps. its halfway through the second story and still at the beginning temp. Ender 3 V2
Obviously something is amiss. I’m sorry that happened. You can either watch for when the temp does change or cancel the print and diagnose. But I assure you this method works. I’ve set it up multiple times in Cura now for 3 different printers.
Two suggestions I have. First, after the print is finished or canceled you could look at the gcode file in notepad and see if anything obvious sticks out. Or if you aren’t comfortable doing that just redo the settings in “modify g code” and reslice it.
@@brianhart1771 done that twice. I think there's a bug in cura not applying the temp change to subsequent layers. I'll try to download an older version
@@brianhart1771 I just searched for M104 and apart from the ones setting the initial print temp, the first one is at 200 degrees and slice 358 or something. I have them all enabled in cura, and all seleced as all subesequent slices. there is an issue somewhere here
In cura i had a similar issue. I ended up making 10 scripts adding one for the 1st layer too to actually get it to change temps. Not sure what's up with that.
@@channinglittleman6542 that’s a great idea. If you do a temp change after the first layer you know the scripts are working without having to wait very long too.
THANK YOU! consider me a follower!
Just divide the number of layers by 9..
Over 4 hours to test a new filament? Ya sorry, nice video but I'd rather not wast the filament or time. It's not hard to dial it in after the first print or 2. I know this is useful for some people.
So the model lists the height. And you proceed to ignore this information and do it all the hard way when you can easily just put in a temp change script 🤣🤣🤣 WOW
Very easy to understand and follow.